Game of Thrones: The Road to Pirate King

Ten days into the voyage, after the storm.

The deck of the Hungry Drinker was piled high with bulging wooden barrels, each tightly bound with thick hemp rope to prevent them from rolling off during the voyage. Most conspicuous were the barrels of salted cod—salt crystals seeped from the gaps in the dark wooden planks, and when the lids were lifted, a stench of rotting seaweed and dead fish assaulted the senses.

When Euron first saw the sailors opening the barrels, he thought it was some kind of punishment ritual, a biological bomb, or something to stink the enemy to death.

"Watch closely, little prince!" Red-haired Oakwood grinned, his missing front tooth reeking of alcohol. He pried open the bucket lid with a dagger, revealing a layer of milky-white maggots floating on the surface of the brownish-yellow brine, wriggling on the salted fish carcasses like a layer of living mold.

Old One-Eyed Wolf was unfazed. His rough fingers picked up a dried cod, maggots falling off with a rustling sound. He wiped it casually on his filthy apron, then popped it into his mouth and chewed, yellow juice oozing from the corner of his mouth. "The more you chew, the better it tastes," he muttered, revealing his uneven, black teeth. "Sea salt is good for you."

Euron's stomach churned. But as he hesitated, Dagmo's iron hook had already speared a piece of fish and offered it to him. "Eat," the old pirate's one eye narrowed, "unless you want to be as hungry as Torick, gnawing on your own leather armor." Euron finally shook his head slightly in refusal.

Hard bread is another kind of torture.

The dark, round cakes were locked in an iron box to keep out rats and dampness. When the old, lame cook brought out a box, they were as hard as rocks, covered with suspicious green spots.

"Catch!" Oakwood swung his axe and brought it down hard. With a "bang," the bread split in two, and crumbs flew everywhere. Euron picked up a piece and found that the inside was crawling with tiny beetles, which were frantically scurrying away through the honeycomb-like holes in the bread.

Baron grinned, grabbed half a beetle, and stuffed it into his mouth. The crisp sound of his teeth crushing the beetle was clearly audible. "Fresher than fish."

That makes sense; it does look a little better than fish. Euron followed their example, taking a cracked loaf of bread from the iron box, scraping off the mold with his dagger, and then dipping it in seawater to soften it. With his first bite, his tongue tasted wood and grit—the bread was mixed with sawdust and shredded seashells to extend its shelf life.

Fresh water was even more precious than food. Tar-coated sheepskin bags hung in the shadow of the mast, each drop meticulously rationed. When Euron drank, he noticed tiny, transparent creatures floating on the surface, swimming within the bags like wisps of living mist. The most terrifying thing was the fresh water after the seventh day. The water in the sheepskin bags began to turn green, tasting like a mixture of rust and rotting seaweed.

"Don't stare at it, and don't waste a drop! Every drop of fresh water is precious!" Dagmore warned him, handing him a rusty iron strainer. "Just filter it out. It'll be fine if you drink it anyway; your intestines will be full of sea worms sooner or later."

Euron didn't follow the old pirate's advice to drink the water; instead, he filtered it and boiled it on the stove before drinking it. This action earned him a severe scolding from his brother Baron.

For the sailors of the Great Drinker, the most painful thing was that their liquor was almost gone! There should have been enough for at least a month, but in the great storm a day ago, half the liquor was taken by the Drowned God, and the remaining liquor… had to be strictly rationed. For the sailors, liquor held the same importance as their swords and their heads.

The cargo hold after sunset became the ironmen's arena. Twenty sailors huddled among barrels of salted fish and piles of ropes, the stench of sweat and fish rising in murky heat.

"Come on! Let the little prince see!" Old Wick pushed Euron to the center of the circle.

His opponent was One-Eyed Glenn, his face still smeared with the blood from the day's battle. He was unarmed, his hands coated in a sticky layer of whale oil, which gleamed slickly in the dim light of the whale oil lamp. "The first rule of the Ironborn in a fight," he suddenly stepped forward, his whale oil-covered hands grabbing Euron's face, "make the enemy lose his footing!"

Euron dodged to the side, but his foot got caught on Glenn's boot. Just as he was about to fall, he grabbed the rope above his head and swung up, his legs wrapping around Glenn's neck like scissors. The two crashed heavily onto the deck, making the cargo barrels hum.

"Beautiful!" Dagmore took a swig of rum. "But this is how it should be in a real fight!" He suddenly kicked over a barrel, splashing the amber liquid all over Euron. In the instant Euron's vision blurred, the old pirate's knee was already pressed against his lower back, a rough dagger against his throat: "Dead men don't get a chance to swing on ropes!"

The bloody training continued late into the night. The Iron Clan's combat philosophy could be summed up in two words: practicality. They learned to bite open an enemy's trachea with their teeth, to gouge out eyes with their fingernails, and even how to conceal sharpened fish bones in their sleeves. "Elegance is bullshit on land! At sea, survival is the only truth!"

Besides eating, sleeping, bragging, fighting, drinking (there's not enough alcohol to drink to one's heart's content), and staring blankly at the sea during the voyage, there is another very dangerous activity—finger dancing.

Finger Dance is a popular game among the Ironborn of the Iron Islands, requiring at least two players. Participants throw short axes at each other, and the one hit must catch or dodge the spinning axe without moving an inch. The game is called Finger Dance because it usually ends when a participant loses at least one finger. Balon Greyjoy is a fanatic of the game, especially after hearing the legend that Horace Hall defeated Logar Greyon II in a finger dance duel, thus inheriting the title of King of the Iron Islands. However, Horace Hall also lost two fingers in the duel, becoming known as "Lame-Horse." This legend turned Balon's love for Finger Dance into a fanaticism. Euron thought it wasn't a game at all, but rather tantamount to stupid self-harm.

But five-year-old Euren didn't yet have the ability to change the Iron People's habits, so he could only be an observer.

The sharkskin war drums pounded on the deck, each beat like a blow to the ribs.

"Let the drowning gods bear witness to the hero!" Dagmo roared, slamming down his drumsticks. The sharkskin war drum reverberated, making everyone's eardrums ache. The sailors drew a circle five paces in diameter with whale oil, and Baron Greyjoy and "Crack-Finger" Hawke stood facing each other, their throwing axes gleaming like mercury in the moonlight. When Dagmo's drumsticks struck for the third time, the duel suddenly erupted!

Baron pulled his right arm back like a catapult, and in the instant his waist twisted, the short-handled axe transformed into a horizontal silver arc, shooting straight at Hawke's heart! Euron clearly caught the airflow torn apart as the axe blade spun—this was not a game, but a deadly strike aimed at a vital point.

Hawke's one-armed body displayed astonishing resilience. He spun rapidly on his left foot, the axe blade grazing his leather breastplate and sending sparks flying. Almost simultaneously, his remaining left hand drew the throwing axe from his waist and, using the momentum of the spin, hurled it back with tremendous force! The axe emitted a shrill, ghostly shriek as it aimed straight for Baron's throat.

"clang!"

Baron parried with his axe, the two blades colliding and sparks flying. The immense impact forced him back half a step, his boot heel landing on the edge of the grease trappings.

"Back off! The sea!" the Ironborn roared. Dagmo grinned as he lifted the salt bucket and splashed the murky liquid all over Baron's head. The salt water seeped into the unhealed whip wound on the side of his neck, causing a spasm.

Baron wiped the salt from his face, his eyes flashing with ferocity. Both axes flew from his hands simultaneously! One swept low across Hawke's ankle, the other spun high to block his retreat. A deadly pincer attack!

Hawk roared and leaped into the air, his high-spinning axe scraping the sole of his boot. But the instant he landed, his low sweeping axe had already cleaved into his calf muscle! The cracking sound of bone breaking sent shivers down Euron's spine. Hawk, however, used the momentum of his kneeling to bite the axe handle and throw it back with all his might!

The blood-stained axe spun into a crimson wheel. Baron jerked his head to the side, the axe blade severing half an inch of his black hair above his left ear and embedding itself deeply into the mast behind him. Amidst the flying sawdust, Hawke, dragging his injured leg with exposed bone, miraculously rose again!

"A blood vessel is severed!" Euron rushed into the fray, pointing to Hawke's calf—blood gushing from the wound had already fanned out three meters away. "A ruptured femoral artery! He'll die if the bleeding doesn't stop within three minutes!"

Dagmo's drumsticks hung suspended in mid-air. Baron, panting heavily, glared at his brother, the throwing axe humming in his hand: "You're going to die in his place?"

Old Wick stood in front of Euron, never forgetting his role as a guard even after boarding the ship. "I must preserve the fighting strength of the 'Drinking Hell'!" Euron kicked away the blood-stained axe, slamming the nautical chart into the pool of blood. "There are Braavos Clippers to the northeast! If we lose men now, they'll be hunting us down tomorrow morning!"

"Ironblood's courage," Baron's voice was icy, "is more important than life itself."

"Useless injury is not courage!" Euron stepped forward, his heterochromatic eyes eerily striking in the moonlight. "It's foolishness!" He swiftly drew his sword, severing the cable, and the heavy anchor crashed into the Circle of Death. "Want to play? Why not tie your feet together and jump on the anchor tip! Only those who survive deserve to be called warriors!"

A deathly silence enveloped the deck. Dagmore suddenly burst into maniacal laughter, smashing a barrel of wine: "Did you hear that, you fools? Play like this next time!" He didn't want to see the two brothers arguing on his ship, so he used a joke to deflect the small conflict.

"Play, play your sister!" Euron thought to himself. By the moonlight, he saw the horrific wound on Hawke's calf—the axe blade had split open the fibula, the dark red muscle rolled up like a split pomegranate, and deep inside, pulsating bluish-purple blood vessels were faintly visible.

"Press here!" Euron roared, grabbing old Wick's hand and pressing his thumb firmly against Hawke's groin. That was the pressure point on the femoral artery; modern first aid knowledge became a lifesaver. The gushing blood flow abruptly decreased, changing from a spurt to a gush.

"Get the liquor! Needle and thread! Canvas rope!" Euron's childish voice carried an undeniable air of authority. Dagmore paused for a moment, then kicked open the wooden crate and pulled out a half-empty bottle of rum. Baron silently cut off a section of canvas rope; the rough hemp fibers were soaked with blood.

Euron bit off the cork of the bottle, pouring the amber liquid onto the wound. "Ughhh—!" Hawke awoke in excruciating pain and then fainted again. With the alcohol washing over him, Euron could see the severed blood vessel: the main branch of the femoral artery had been sliced ​​open by a third of its length by an axe blade, gushing blood like a ruptured water sac. Bone fragments and wood chips were embedded in the muscle, trembling slightly with the pulse.

"Give me the shark teeth!" Euron reached out. Glenn hurriedly unfastened his necklace—an Ironborn amulet made of six shark teeth. Euron picked out the longest, sharpest tooth, dipped it in rum, and threaded it through the twisted rope "stitch." As he pierced the rolled-up flesh with the shark teeth, the onlookers gasped. The needle tip precisely avoided the nerve bundles, weaving along both sides of the severed blood vessel wall. With each tightening of the rope, the ruptured blood vessel closed a little more. Euron tore the canvas rope that Baron handed him into strips. He first laid down rum-soaked burlap, then spiraled the strips around. When he reached the third layer, he suddenly shoved Hawke's dagger between the wounded man's teeth: "Bite down!" Then he grabbed both ends of the strips and tightened them with all his might—"Crack!"

A sickening grinding sound came from the fractured bone. Hawke's eyes bulged, and deep teeth marks were visible on the hilt of his dagger. But even more horrifying was the crimson stain of blood that instantly soaked through the bandages. Euron didn't hesitate to add a second and third layer of pressure bandages. When the seventh layer of bandages was tightly wrapped, the bleeding finally stopped. Euron broke two oars in half and used his dagger to carve them into splints. Glenn contributed the last of his foot bindings to serve as bandages. Once the splints were in place, Euron raised Hawke's injured leg and placed it on a rum barrel. In the moonlight, the wounded man's pale face, pale from blood loss, finally showed a glimmer of life.

Dagmo squatted in the pool of blood, his one eye fixed on the intricately crafted splint: "Where did you learn that from?"

"The Drowned God taught me in a dream." Euron wiped his face with his bloodied hand, his heterochromatic eyes gleaming eerily in the moonlight, and chuckled, "Do you believe me or not?"

Dagmore was skeptical, while Baron scoffed, "I believe you... my foot! Last month, Vincent Ryan fell off Blackwater Cliff and broke his leg. A female doctor from the North sawed off his broken leg, and that's what she did to stop the bleeding. This brat was watching the whole thing, probably just copying what he saw."